No matter how hard the Nationals try to distance themselves from Livan Hernandez, they just can't avoid him right now. Five days after the big guy made his Astros debut against his former club in Kissimmee, he's back on the mound again today in Viera.

Livo will face a few more regulars than he did last time, with Ryan Zimmerman, Jayson Werth, Danny Espinosa and Wilson Ramos all starting today. Bryce Harper also returns to the lineup after finally getting his first game of the spring off yesterday; the 19-year-old currently leads the entire roster in hits (5) and at-bats (11) in Grapefruit League play.

Edwin Jackson makes his second start of the spring, once again hoping to get his timing and mechanics down after struggling a bit with them last week in Kissimmee. He'll be cleared to go four innings or 60 pitches. Jackson is due to be followed on the mound by Ross Detwiler, Henry Rodriguez (making his spring debut) and Ryan Perry.

CN, they've said there were going to wait until Sat. to start LaRoche in Grapefruit League game.MicheleS, try the federalbaseball website if you want constant updates, the game day threads there are very active (you'll get every at-bat).

NatsLady (and everybody): they don't have their fancy pitch-tracking thing at the spring training games. A strikeout shows up as three strikes, a walk shows as four balls, and an out or hit shows as one strike (they count balls in play as strikes).

Anonymous said… Harper's ready. He knows he's ready, Davey knows he's ready. The world knows he's ready. Kid can hit, kid has massive power. He's ready. March 08, 2012 1:03 PM Thanks for this post. There is no sure things. The kid knows he's ready is a given. 2 ground ball hits into open areas and a hustle infield single tells me very little so far except the kid hustles.Let me see some line drives hits and the power you speak of consistently. I believe its there but you don't want to rush him. Rizzo will do right by this kid and hope the kid shows us what he can do and be an impact player.To me, that's what its about. Making an impact and I'd rather it be in high OBP than swinging for the fences every time.

I know its a pipedream, but still would see Boras work out something with the Nats so he can start the season here but the Nats not lose the year. I know, it won't happen… but it would be best for all involved. I hope with his newfound maturity Bryce understands he'll be riding the bus for a month based on the economics of the game, not his talent.

SCNatsFan said:'I hope with his newfound maturity Bryce understands he'll be riding the bus for a month based on the economics of the game, not his talent.' Last year at AA HArper hit .256 .329 .395 with 3 HR's in 147 PA's. What in that line makes you think that he's ready for the majors?

jd, what makes me think he is ready is his performance this spring as well as the dearth of options we have in the outfield. By all accounts every team that sees him has something to gush about. The argument is it better for him to finish his polish in the minors or on the big club is an argument better decided by people smarter themn me.

DC teams have a terrible habit of playing up to and even more often down to their level of competition. I LOVE seeing us put a solid beating on an inferior squad. Yes I know this is only spring training, but this is a habit we need to get into and carry along to the regular season. Good teams maintain their focus beat up the bad ones.

I don't remember what exactly happened but Rauch had some personal problems while he was in DC, something to do with his wife or child but I remember reading it and feeling bad for the guy, thinking it had something to do with his decline after the trade.

natsfan1a said… Okay, now Gameday graphic is ahead of the radio. March 08, 2012 3:13 PM natsfan1a said… Wait, it's behind. I'm so confused. That's because the Gameday graphic is driven by actual human beings who are at the ballpark watching the game and who type in the result of every pitch using some sort of special code that the system understands. If there's a complex play or a hit-or-error decision, they have to wait for the official scorer to rule before they type anything in about the play. Thus, delay is introduced. (They must hate the official scorer at Nationals Park, who often dithers well into the next AB to make a ruling – and then changes it shortly thereafter.)Radio announcers are also actual human beings (usually) but if they don't understand what just happened they say something anyway and plow right on with the broadcast. Radio delays are due to built-in system delays, or on the web due to the dreaded buffering. Thus it's easy for the radio and Gameday to get out of sync. Probably easier than it is for them to stay in sync.

From the last thread:For the opening day get-together at Duffy's–it's on.Yes, we are not normally open at that time, but will open up at 2pm for opening day with happy hour prices.Here is the link to Happy Hour Prices

Wow – meetings all afternoon and the game is over already. I have learned more here than on another site's game thread, however. Sounds like this edition of the former nats reunion was pretty good. I have to say that I really love the Pitching Plethora. Should we be worried about Bryce? I think if they let him he would play with a limb hanging off so you never know. Hitting improving? Doesn't sound like any of the posters were at the game. I hate not seeing anything!!!

Wait, who's on first? Yeah, this would be the inaugural *away* opener Insider gathering, as initially proposed by Sunderland in the previous thread. Well, *we* won't be away, but the team will. Eh, never mind…

MicheleS said… And I want the Storen Natitude Shirt "the bottom of the 9th has been cancelled!"That would be the home jersey version. The away shirt would have to be something like "The bottom of the ninth is brought to you by the letter K, and the number 0."

Heard the beginning of the Livo interview on Gameday before it cut off, he said he came out not because of the come-backer but because he had thrown 55 pitches.Then I got to hear, I KID YOU NOT, the Minnesota Twins announcer making promos for EVERY radio station in the upper midwest (some of them several times, as he refined his pitch.) Gameday has, let's say, some tech problems to work out.

I heard that, too, NatsLady. Livo also referred to his former Nats teammates as being like brothers to him. I tuned out before the Twins promos. Lucky me. Speaking of commercials, I thought it was funny that the sausage (saahsage for Cubs fans) company guy in the Astros commercials was actually named "Kielbasa." How awesome is that?

At the game today … Mostly a very impressive one. Zim of course was Zim, already locked in at the plate — his dinger was where a LH pull hitter would have put it, and his RBI single was classic clutch Zman. but I wondered at two sidearm throws to first on slow rollers towards the hole… Looked natural for the way he picked up the ball while running, so I wondered if maybe he's just doing the 3/4 throw where he can set his feet? Hmmm, something to watch.EJax was overpowering most hitters, the double was very hard hit but no question LaRoche and maybe Morse would have gotten to it. Det was equally in control for two of his three innings but the middle one was three consecutive hard hit liners that the wind might have hung up just a bit (not to take anything from the OFs, especially Perez who made a very nice running grab on one. (Perez was also solid in 2 ABs

iPhone freezing on me there a bit.Anyway, hoping Perez will get to run wild at Harrisburg this year and get a look-see in September — still a little raw but clearly a toolsy guy.Nice also to see the aspirants for the bench doing such great hitting with RISP, maybe they'll inspire the regulars. Espy was terrific in the field as always but was totally exposed by Livo on his second AB, swinging at predictable garbage in the dirt (a reminder of how lethal Livo could be against younger or more predictable hitters). Zim of course, conversely, clearly had Zlivo's number

What an effin hoot this "we can tweak Jackson's delivery to help reach his full potential" BS turned out to be. One good 4 inning outing against a mixed bag of astros (a sh***y team last year), and suddenly all the tweaking is scrapped and it's back to whatever got him to this point in his career. and now the stage is set so that when Jackson signs somewhere else next year, the next GM and pitching coach can help beat writers fill headlines for a month with talk of tweaking his delivery the way countless other teams (and now the nats, too) never could.

And for all you HRod doubters, the September MPHRod is back. Overpowering hitters to the point of being disarming, and even Bixler who clearly had a plan (the first two hitters were just flailing) could only foul off a few and then tap out weakly to second.Even Perry looked decent though hard to know against prospects on a weak team.And capped the afternoon by saying howdy to NatsJack and getting a free ale at Jack and Charlie's.

Scooter said… The pleasure was all mine, Andrew. March 08, 2012 9:27 PM It certainly made this Spring Training more fun for me than prior years getting together with Nats-Insiders.Next year, we should all plan together.